NEARER to Hope

In 1996, thirty five people died at the hands of a young man as they enjoyed the attractions of a tourist resort in late autumn.

Nimbus of flaxen curls blazing about his head like some fallen angel, Martin Bryant battled his demons, laying about him with semi-automatic weapons at the Port Arthur prison colony in south-eastern Tasmania. He spared neither young nor old, male nor female, husband nor wife, neither mother nor child. Later it would emerge Bryant was apparently impressed by the efficiency of the Dunblane in Scotland just weeks before, when seventeen children and one teacher were murdered by a lone gunman at their primary school. Bryant, said his captors, expressed pride at the numerical superiority of his coup.

...if on joyful wing cleaving the sky,

Sun, moon, and stars forgot, upward I'll fly...

People were stricken dumb by the monstrosity of Port Arthur that day. The dark, tragic history of that brutal place had again laid its dread hand not only upon Bryant's victims but upon us all. In our Sydney home, my children and I moved silently about our house like ghosts. It seemed our world was collapsing about us into chaos and despair. When Saint Andrew's Cathedral in Sydney announced a memorial service, I - agnostic though I am - did not hesitate.

...There let the way appear, steps unto Heav'n...

So it was that on the Thursday evening following the massacre we found ourselves, my kids and me, seated in a pew in Australia's oldest cathedral. So many crowded about us, some silently listening, others openly weeping. Almost twenty years later, I cannot remember a single word said. But the music, oh the music...

...So by my woes to be nearer my God to Thee...

I recognised that old hymn. Knew too, that as the mighty TITANIC sank into the icy depths of the Atlantic long before in 1912, the ship's gallant orchestra played Nearer to comfort those facing certain death that night. In so remaining, those musicians perished too. Tears began to run down my face and my tweleve year old daughter drew closer.

It was not the promise of joy in the hereafter that moved me so deeply that night. No, it was the presence of us all, shaken and bruised, but seeking from and with each other something better than the madness and sadness assailing our world. Our hope for a better way was a candle in the dark, easily buffeted, but inevitably all we have. It may be snuffed out but we will light it again and again...

Later that year, the kids and I joined the Coalition for Gun Control, pressuring government to tighten Australian gun laws of the time. Again - all of us together - seeking another answer.